Axl:Â Â â€œWeâ€™re aiming at â€™96 [for the album] and weâ€™ll probably be doing a lot of recording, and trying to put a lot of things between now and thenâ€¦ We may work with Brian May on a project upcoming.â€ [Kilde]

Slash:â€œI started hanging out with Matt and recording demos of that stuff just for fun, and Mike Inez from Alice In Chains and Gilby started to come around and play with us. The three of us just got into a groove of jamming and recording every night. We didnâ€™t know what it was going to be. At some point I played it for Axl, who took a pronounced disinterest in it. I played Axl a demo with some of my ideas for songs, and all he said was: â€˜I donâ€™t feel like playing this kind of musicâ€™. I answered: â€˜But this could be an excellent Gunner record, a hundred percent in GNâ€™R styleâ€™. He didnâ€™t really care â€™cause he only wanted to play industrial and Pearl Jam-sounding crap.â€

Gilby:Â â€œ[Axl] just wasnâ€™t into what we were doing, so heâ€™s kind of rethinking what he wants to do. He just kind of threw a wrench into everything that me, Slash and Matt had worked on. And then Duff came in. Duff and Axl have an idea what the album Â should be, and the rest of us have Â another idea.â€

Axl: â€œWhat people donâ€™t know is, the [Slashâ€™s] Snakepit album â€“ that is Â the Guns Nâ€™Roses album. I just wouldnâ€™t do itâ€¦ Duff walked out on it, and I walked out on it, because I wasnâ€™t allowed to be any part of it. Â Itâ€™s like, â€˜No, you do this, thatâ€™s how it isâ€™. And Â I didnâ€™t believe in it. I thought that there were Â riffs and parts and some ideas, I thought, that needed to be developed. [But] I had no problem working on itâ€¦â€ [MTV, 1999]

Duff:Â â€œWe started going to Slashâ€™s houseâ€¦ and we had a batch of songs. But, ya know what? Without Izzy, we just werenâ€™t writing the old way. We had a bunch of great songs, but the way we used to write wasnâ€™t all sitting in a room and trying to force ourselves to be a family. We just were. But there was a point up there where it was looking good and we started cranking out songs, but it just started falling apart.â€

Duff: “I was in my house in Seattle when a small pain became acute. It was so bad that I couldnâ€™t pick up the phone to call anyone. Luckily, my best friend happened to come over to my house, and I got to [the emergency room].”

24 – En chokerende i et Kerrang interview meddelelse fra Gilby Clarke, der fortÃ¦ller at der ikke kommer et nyt GnR album, og at han ikke aner om han er med i bandet lÃ¦ngere:Â “Well, it’s an Axl thing. He just wasn’t into what we were doing, so he’s kind of rethinking what he wants to do. He just kind of threw a wrench into everything that me, Slash and Matt had worked to. And then Duff came in. Duff and Axl have an idea what the album should be, and the rest of us have another idea. So right now, we’re not gonna do anything. And anyway, from July to the end of the year, I’m not gonna be available, because I’m gonna be working on my record. If the band decide to make a record during that time, then there’s a good chance I’m not going to be doing it.” LÃ¦s resten af interviewet her.

Gilby:Â â€œMy last conversation with [Axl] was when he called me and was trying to explain what he wanted to do. Â And, basically, it was: â€˜I want to change the sound of the band. You know, I want to go more into a current directionâ€¦ I want to use, you know, more industrial type thingsâ€™. You know, he was really into bands like Janeâ€™s Addiction, Pearl Jam and Nine Inch Nails. And I just kinda laughed and said: â€˜Look â€“ I want to play guitar in a loud version of The Rolling Stonesâ€™, you know? I had known for a long time that Axl was going to change the direction of the band. I Â knew the end was coming. Thatâ€™s why I dug deep into my solo career. There were days when Axl would call Slash Â and go, â€˜Fire Gilby â€“ he doesnâ€™t fit in with my Â plan,â€™ but he would never tell me. That was going on for a long time.â€ [Spin Magazine, 1999]

Slash: “He [Eric Dover]and I wrote the lyrics to all 12 tracks, and I think itâ€™s pretty easy to tell which songs he wrote and which ones I wrote: all of my songs are directed at one personâ€¦ though no one picked up on it at the time. I used the record as an opportunity to vent a lot of shit that I needed to get off my chest.”

Slash:“It didnâ€™t work. We didnâ€™t all show up at the same time in the studio â€“ put it that way. And that was pretty indicative of what I didnâ€™t want to happen.”

I Slash’s biografi fortalte han at Axl sendte beskeder videre igennem en anden om, at Axl: “needed to re-record my guitar solo so that it sounded more note-for-note like the Keith Richards original“. Da Slash fik DAT bÃ¥ndet retur: “…noticed that there was another guitar layered on top of mine in the solo. Axl had gotten Paul Huge to double over me“.

Slash:Â “Paulâ€™s just a friend of Axlâ€™s. He brought Paul in without telling me. I got really angry, cos the main thing is the band â€“ getting the band togetherâ€¦ Itâ€™s not like you hire a bunch of session people and make Guns Nâ€™Roses â€“ it doesnâ€™t work that way.” [Metal Express interview]

Axl: “At the time, Paul was one of the best people we knew who was both available and capable of complementing Slash’s style. You could bring in a better guitar player than Paul. You could bring in a monster. I tried putting Zakk Wylde with Slash and that didn’t work…Paul was only interested in complementing Slash, laying down a foundation of a riff or something that would accent or encourage Slash’s lead playing.”

Slash:Â “All of a sudden, after the album was finished, [Axl] goes: â€˜Remember those tapes I have? You know, I want toâ€¦â€™ He didnâ€™t know weâ€™d finished the record. And he goes: â€˜[I like] this song, this song, this song, this song and this songâ€™. And I went: â€˜Dude â€“ we finished it already. Itâ€™s goneâ€™. And he goes: â€˜You couldnâ€™t have done an album in two weeksâ€™. I said: â€˜Oh yeah. I canâ€™. You can do that. And it turned Â into a big fight.”

Gilby: “They did that while I was on the road touring for my solo record. […] I knew that that was the ending because nobody told me about it. Officially I was in the band at that time, and they did that song without me. That was one of the last straws for me, because nobody had said anything to me, and they recorded a song by one of my favorite bands. It was pretty clear I’m a big Rolling Stones fan, and they recorded the song without me. So I knew that was it.”

Zakk Wylde om Axl:Â “Yeah – he said, `Dude, why don’t you come and write some songs and we’ll see what happens. If it works out, great, it’d be a blast’. He just said, `Hey, maybe we’ll be in a band together!’. So we jammed together for just over a week, we jammed over a whole bunch of sh*t and came out with three pretty cool ideas. That was with the whole band: Axl, Slash, Dizzy, Duff, Matt and me. We were all just jammin’ together and havin’ a blast. That’s where it pretty much stands right now-things are up in the air. I mean, I have crazy sh*t happening with my stuff. I’m also doing my work with Oz and there’s no telling what will happen in the future. I think the guys in Guns are f**kin’ awesome, and hangin’ with Axl when I have, we’ve had a f**kin’ great time talkin’ and jammin’.”Â Â [Kilde]

Zakk Wylde: â€œAxl called me up when we were doing [Ozzyâ€™s] Ozzmosis album. They were down in rehearsals â€“ it was me, Slash, Axl, Duff, Matt and Dizzy. But, There were never any melodies. There were never any lyrics. Iâ€™d say â€˜Dude, did you come up with any lyrics yet?, And heâ€™s just like, â€˜Dude, I got people suing me right now.â€™ Heâ€™s on the phone with his lawyers 24-7. He was, like, â€˜I canâ€™t come up with any lyrics right now â€“ theyâ€™d be about every other lawsuit I got goingâ€™. So we jammed together for just over a week, we jammed over a whole bunch of shit and came out with three pretty cool ideas. One of the riffs ended up on the first Black Label Society record [Sonic Brew], [on the track] The Rose Petalled Garden [Lyt her]. The stuff that I wanted to do, eventually, would have been like GNâ€™R on steroids, man.â€ [Kilde]

Slash om GnR:Â â€œWeâ€™ve been jamming a bit, but there isnâ€™t any actual songsâ€¦ Right now there seems to be a fucking confusion about what â€˜a good Guns-recordâ€™ is.â€

Matt:“Axl asked me Â not to go on tour with Slash. If I toured with Snakepit, it could have Â cause serious consequencesâ€¦ So I stayed at Â home and I worked a bit with Axl and Duff. Iâ€™m sure I took the good decision.”

Izzy: “I returned to Los Angeles after Duff’s phone call: “Hey man, you come back, we’ll play for the opening of a new casino in Las Vegas. It’s me who’s handling the roster. There’ll be Iggy Pop, Bo Diddley, B.B. King, etc.” I answered him “Whoaa! When do you want me to find you over there? If I can play with Bo or B.B., I’ll come.” He called me back the next day: “Izzy, you’re going to accompany Bo and B.B. at the same time.” How could I have refused that offer? I so went there and I took my place”. [Kilde]

Izzy:Â â€œIn April, 1995, Duff calls me again: â€˜Iâ€™m trying to compose new songs for the guys in GNâ€™R. Come and give me a hand.â€™ I said to myself: â€˜Well, shit, after all, why not?â€™. Duff and I wrote 10 pieces in the space of week. We even recorded them as demos.â€

Izzy om Axl:Â â€œprobably a month later, one night he calls me [and] we got into the issue of me leaving Guns Nâ€™ Roses. I told him how it was on my side. Told him exactly how I felt about it and why I leftâ€¦ But, I mean he had a fucking notepad. I could hear him [turning the pages] going, â€˜Well, ah, you said in 1982â€¦ blah, blah, blahâ€¦â€™ And Iâ€™m like, â€˜What the fuck â€“ 1982?â€™. He was bringing up a lot of really weird old shit. Iâ€™m like, whatever, man. But thatâ€™s the last time I talked to him.â€

Slash:Â “We had a lot of fun, there was no drama, we just booked gigs, showed up, got up there and played. We did clubs and theaters and it was great, it really helped me rediscover why I love what I do.”

Slash:Â “We were in the midst of booking another leg when I was informed by Geffen that they’d sold a million copies of It’s Five O’Clock Somewhere and had turned a profit so they saw no reason for me to continue our tour. I was to return to L.A. because Axl was ready to begin working on the next Guns N’ Roses record. They’d thought it through: in case I objected, they made it clear that the financial tour support for Snakepit was over.”

Slash: “I realized I was out alone, and that meant me and Axl had to come to terms with…not our animosity, but having a different idea about everything. And I mean, you know, Axl works as hard as anybody else, but only on what he wants to work on, and I… I just lost interest.”

16 – I et interview indrÃ¸mmerÂ Slash:Â “Right now, Axl and I are deliberating over the future of our relationshipâ€¦ I have only been back in the band for three weeks and my relationship with Axl right now is sort of at a standstill.”

Duff: “We’ve been in for two weeks as a full band with Slash and Axl (Rose) and me, and we go from midnight to five in the morning. With Guns, there’s no problems with material. The problem has always been getting us in the same room. So now that we’re in there, it’s rockin’.”

Slash: “Axl and I have not been capable of seeing eye to eye on Guns N’ Roses for some time. We recently tried to collaborate, but at this point, I’m no longer in the band. I’d like to think we could work together in the future if we were able to work out our differences.”

DuffÂ kommenterer bandets nuvÃ¦rende situation i et interview:Â “everything is going to be coolâ€¦ Guns is doing a record so of course Matt and I will be in the studio for at least three-four weeks in Februaryâ€¦We have song titles, but no album titleâ€¦ As far as the rumour that one person wants us to change, thatâ€™s just not true.”

AxlÂ havde dog i mellemtiden besluttet sig for ikke at brugeÂ Slash’sÂ musik:Â Â “[The 1996 tracks are] not something I would want to approach (without Slash), because, at the time, there was only one person that I knew who could do certain riffs that way. â€¦Thatâ€™s the reason why that material got scrapped.”

Todd Sullivan: “Most of the stuff he played me was just sketches. I said, â€˜Look, Axl, this is some great, promising stuff here. Why donâ€™t you consider just bearing down and completing some of these songs?â€™ He goes, â€˜Hmm, bear down and complete some of these songs?â€™. Next day I get a call from Eddie [Rosenblatt, Geffen chairman], saying I was off the project.”

Slash: “That’s something that happened. I was blindsided by it, more or less a legal faux pas. I don’t know what he’s gonna do, as far as that goes. But I’d be lying to say I wasn’t a little bit peeved at that. It’d be one thing if I quit altogether. But I haven’t, and the fact that he can actually go and do that without the consent of the other members of the band …”

Februar

Musikretningen blev Ã¥benlys, da Moby talte med Axl:Â “At the risk of sounding like a sleazy music biz guy, I met with Axl last week to hear their new demos,â€ said Moby at the time. â€œTheyâ€™re writing with a lot of loops, and believe it or not, theyâ€™re doing it better than anybody Iâ€™ve heard lately.”

Axl:Â “with Dizzy Reed writing the musical hook of the chorus. Former member Duff McKagan as well as former employee Matt Sorum failed to see its potential and showed no interest in exploring, let alone recording the piece.”

Â Matt: “I told Axl to see him and he said â€˜Thatâ€™s our guitar player.â€™ I said, â€˜Bring in Robin to play alongside Slash,â€™ but Axl said, â€˜I want him to play lead.â€™”

Matt: “Paul Huge walked into the studio and made a bad comment about Slash. I said, â€˜You donâ€™t say that when Iâ€™m in the roomâ€™. Then Axl laid in, I argued with him and it was over. Huge followed me out into the parking lot and said, â€˜Come backâ€™. I said, â€˜I canâ€™t come back, heâ€™s fired me. Do you feel good about breaking up one of the greatest bands that ever lived?â€™”

Shaq: “I saw Guns N’ Roses listed on the bulletin board in the lobby of the studio so I stuck my head in to check it out. They asked me to join them, so I started freestylin’ over their track. It was the first time I ever performed with a rock group, and it felt good.”

Duff: “I left the band two weeks before my daughter Grace was born. It was not fun. Thatâ€™s the reason. The reason why I stayed in the band was to be a bridge between Axl and Slashâ€¦ I went to dinner with Axl and his managerâ€¦ I said â€˜Axl, we had [a lot of] fun together, but itâ€™s your own band now. Iâ€™m not interested in you as a dictator. I didnâ€™t come here to talk about the money advanced for next record. You can have it.â€™” [Burrn magazine]

Billy:Â “I came in there initially to program some guitar sounds, and then wound up hitting it off with Axl, and then my job kind of migrated into the computer guy. I donâ€™t know what you would call me exactly. I kind of was there all night with Axl as he would work. The band came in during the day with a producer and would work most of the day, and then I would come in ten oâ€™clock at night, say goodbye to those guys, Axl would show up later on, and then weâ€™d do our thing all night and then do it the next day.”

Josh Freese: “I went down and auditioned for them, sick as a dog â€“ I had eaten some dodgy seafood in London right before that, gotten on a plane and auditioned that night. I was vomiting all the way to the rehearsal. Axl was totally cool though, and very open-minded about music. He said: â€˜I hear you played with Devo; I really liked Devo and when I liked them, you got beat up for liking them.â€™ I thought, â€˜This guy is really coolâ€™. It became obvious that he really listens to music â€“ he was talking about artists all over the map. They invited me back again and from the beginning Axl was so nice and we got along and had a good time. He was completely open, so I decided to join.”

Sp1at (GnR site): “Dawn Soler, the musical supervisor for the film What Dreams May Comeâ€¦ assured me that Axl â€˜was really into the filmâ€™ and rather interestingly suggested that he â€˜wrote the song for itâ€™. This contradicts an interview from 1994 where Axl said he had already written the song, which many fans speculated was about Dylan, the son of Axlâ€™s one-time partner, Stephanie Seymour.”

Axl: “I have re-recorded Appetite [with] Josh Freese on drums, Tommy Stinson on bass, Paul Tobias on guitarâ€¦ and Robin Finck was on lead guitarâ€¦ with the exception of two songs [Anything Goes and Youâ€™re Crazy], because we replaced those with You Could Be Mine, and Patience, and why do that? Well, we had to rehearse them anyway to be able to perform them live again, and there were a lot of recording techniques and certain subtle styles and drum fills and things like that that are kind of 80s signatures that subtly could use a little sprucing upâ€¦ a little less reverb and a little less double bass and things like that. At the beginning [the new band] didnâ€™t want to play [the old songs]. They didnâ€™t want to play [them] that much, because they are musicians in themselves. They had a punk attitude like the old Guns Nâ€™Roses. But later it became fun for them, they began to appreciate the songs and enjoy playing them. We hadnâ€™t written songs or recorded for many years. There were band changes and there were many changes in the record companyâ€¦ When we tried writing songs in the old style of Guns Nâ€™Roses, they sounded too old, they didnâ€™t sound so alive. We could not make that. And I think that that also passed with the old Guns Nâ€™Roses. The songs composed by the boys for another album many years ago, everything sounded old. Then we tried to explore to keep the band alive.â€” [Rock & Pop FM, 1999]

Youth: “When I walked into the studio, they were rehearsing the old songs to record for a greatest hits package. They were gonna do them exactly the same way. So my first project was to sort of dissuade Axl from doing that.”

Brian Youth prÃ¸vede at fÃ¥ Axl til at synge igen, ved at spille akustisk guitar i hans kÃ¸kken for ham, men Axl havde ikke sunget i 18 mÃ¥neder:Â “He hadnâ€™t been singing for around 18 months. I think the record had turned into a real labour. He was stuck and didnâ€™t know how to proceed, so he was avoiding it. He had some brilliant ideas, but they really were just sketches. He really wanted to leave the past behind and make a hugely ambitious album, like Led Zeppelinâ€™s Physical Grafitti crossed with Pink Floydâ€™s Dark Side Of The Moon.” [The Times, 2005]”

Youth: “Axl was deeply unhappy. I sensed he was depressed because he only worked from 9pm to 9am. He was living a hermit lifestyle. In the end, he told me he wasnâ€™t ready. He was trying to get to some spiritual level that would make him happy.”

James Barber mÃ¥tte se sit samarbejde med bandet slutte uden en udgivelse, selvom han bekrÃ¦ftede at et album eksisterede:Â “The Robin Finck/Josh Freese/Tommy Stinson/Billy Howerdel/Dizzy Reed version of the album that existed in 1998 was pretty incredible. It still sounded like GNâ€™R but there were elements of Zeppelin, Nine Inch Nails and Pink Floyd mixed in. The record just needed a lead vocal and a mixâ€¦ If Axl had recorded vocals, it would have been an absolutely contemporary record in 1999.”

Sean:“Ah yes, that was a long time ago. It was between â€™98 and 2000, I think. Tommy Stinson and I became good friends, and we see each other quite a bit, so he gives me updates here and there. I have no idea whatâ€™s going on now. Almost everybody involved with the project when I was working on it isnâ€™t a part of it anymore. It was Josh Freese on drums, Tommy was playing bassâ€¦ Dizzy was playing keyboards, and I think heâ€™s still doing that. It was a blast working with Axl. He was a really funny guy. Thatâ€™s probably the one thing that surprised me the most- just how funny the guy could be. When heâ€™d come in to do vocals, heâ€™d warm up for like forty-five minutes not by singing, but by telling jokes. He was just extremely funny and super nice.” [Kilde]

Axl: “I originally wanted to make a traditional record or try to get back to an Appetite thing or something, because that would have been a lot easier for me to do. I was involved in a lot of lawsuits for Guns Nâ€™Roses and in my own personal life, so I didnâ€™t have a lot of time to try and develop a new style or re-invent myself, so I was hoping to write a traditional thing, but I was not really allowed to do that. So, I opted for what I thought would or shouldâ€™ve made the band and especially Slash very happy. Basically I was interested in making a Slash record with some contributions from everybody else.”

Slash: “Axl was trying to convince me it was all good, that it was something he and I were doing as partnersâ€¦ I just didnâ€™t go for it.â€

Axl: “I think that some of the riffs that were coming out of [Slash] were the meanest, most contemporary, bluesiest, rocking things since Aerosmithâ€™s Rocks. The 2000 version of Aerosmith Rocks or the 1996 Aerosmith Rocks by the time we would have put it outâ€¦ I feel that some of the recordings we did in that limited amount of time had some of the best playing that Slash had done at least since Illusions. I was there. I know what I heard and it was pretty exciting.â€

Del James:Â “Slash came back for some writing down at the studio, totally negative and belligerent, quits the fucking band and then publicly spins it into somehow he got pushed out.” [2008 interview]

Â Duff: “Imagine you and Â I grow up together and youâ€™re my best friend. OK, Iâ€™m in Guns Nâ€™ Roses and I tell the rest youâ€™re going to join the band. â€˜OK, Slash, Axl, Matt, guys, this guy is in the bandâ€™. â€˜Duff, you got a minute?â€™ â€˜No, heâ€™s in the band.â€™ â€˜Well, no. Everyone in the band has to vote it, Duff, so no way!â€™ â€˜Fuck you, this guy is in the band! Iâ€™m not doing anything unless this guy is in the band.â€™ â€˜OK, you know what? Weâ€™ll try and play with him, since youâ€™re that much interested in itâ€¦ â€˜Hey Duff â€“ the guy canâ€™t play.â€™ â€˜I donâ€™t care.â€™ â€˜Well thatâ€™s not very reasonableâ€¦â€™”

Et interview med Robin Finck i Kerrang, da han er tilbage i N.I.N. forklarer han hvorfor han droppede ud:Â “I was excited about the material – the band sounded good. But we’d get a song done to an extent and wait for Axl to write a lyric and/or song. I couldn”t work on songs with titles like ‘Instrumental 34’ anymore.”

2000:

“Not only do these defendants refuse to pay for current efforts undertaken by Big F D, but they also now refuse to pay Big F D in conjunction with past services for which income continues and to which commission Big F D is unequivocally entitled … [The live album] is among the work for which the defendants wish not to pay Big F D and for which they intend and have already kept the money owed to Big F D.”

SÃ¸gsmÃ¥let inkluderede ogsÃ¥ kontraktbrud:

“Big F D was to be paid pursuant to the management agreement a commission equal to 15%, excepting certain exclusions, of the gross earnings of the defendants annually received during the term of the management agreement. “Such gross earnings included moneys [sic] received by the defendants from any activities throughout the entertainment industry whether received as a member of Guns N’ Roses or as a member of any other group or as a solo artist.”

Axl: ”There is the desire definitely to do it, to get over some of the hump of the people that are trying to keep you in the past,” he says. ”There are people that I thought I was friends with who are all of a sudden in the magazines, going, ‘They’ll never get anywhere without Slash.’ Thanks a lot. Like I made this happen, you know. I basically figured out a way to save my own ass. There was only one way out, and I found it. Otherwise, you know, I believe my career was just going down the toilet. I figured out how to save my ass and then tried to bring everybody with me.”

Doug Goldstein: ”After years and years of trying to work with his old band mates, it’s taken him quite some time to get the unit he now has together. ‘Along the time we were trying to put it together with the other fellas, I certainly had my doubts. But now he has a group of guys that he appears to be friends with, and it’s a very cohesive unit, which wasn’t necessarily the case in the past. Everything I’ve heard is spectacular. It’s exciting and diverse and – I think – absolutely well worth the wait.”

Question:You’re in Guns ‘n Roses now — I’m curious to know what led up to this intriguing development. How did you hook up?

Buckethead: There was this Leatherface doll that Spencers-type stores put out, it’s pretty large and puffy, it was on the top of the list. Didn’t receive it from the family. Got invited to Axl’s on Christmas night; never met him before. Sad about not getting the doll but it is ok, but still sad. Get to Axl’s, he presents this box wrapped up. The Michael Myers version has been out for a while, knew it was the same box. Figured it was Michael Myers and opened it up. There was Leatherface. In the brain joined that second.

Question:Are you enjoying yourself in Guns ‘n Roses? Are you contributing music to the project and generally being encouraged to be yourself?

Buckethead:It has been fun like a ride never been ridden. Every turn is new, it will be interesting to see where this ride goes.

Interview med Slash, hvor han forklarer lidt om rygterne om en GnR genforening ikke er sand:Â “There have always been rumors connected with Guns. I can tell you that there was no talk about the original line-up getting back together. It’s good that we broke up when we did because fans would have been disappointed by what they saw if we’d carried on.”